The one thing I don't really get is why, pi's everywhere? Most of the times an esp32 will be more than enough for a few sensors. No need to be running a full OS and the added benefit they are actually available right now to buy.
Ive encountered this sentiment a lot from my hardware engineering friends, I dont know if its a side effect of the job or something, but they tend to value the sort of "efficiency of exactly the right chip / protocol / whatever" over the "versatility / community / perceived technical quality " around the same. Sort of like a callback to Betamax VS VHS.
- Hydrogen fuel cells are a better technology than batteries
- Zigbee is a better wireless protocol than wifi
- you dont need a RPi, an ATTiny and some transistors would work fine
sure, but wifi is being improved for tons of use cases and Zigbee only really has the one use case just now, getting started writing code for x86 with a full OS is much simpler than for a microcontroller etc etc
ultimately the network effect / whatever kick in and the popular stuff usually ends up winning IMHO
Pi is standard, extremely well supported, has GPIO and most people are familiar with running a container and gluing python compared to writing C (I know about micropython, but Joe PythonLearner doesn't).
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The one thing I don't really get is why, pi's everywhere? Most of the times an esp32 will be more than enough for a few sensors. No need to be running a full OS and the added benefit they are actually available right now to buy.
Ive encountered this sentiment a lot from my hardware engineering friends, I dont know if its a side effect of the job or something, but they tend to value the sort of "efficiency of exactly the right chip / protocol / whatever" over the "versatility / community / perceived technical quality " around the same. Sort of like a callback to Betamax VS VHS.
- Hydrogen fuel cells are a better technology than batteries - Zigbee is a better wireless protocol than wifi - you dont need a RPi, an ATTiny and some transistors would work fine
sure, but wifi is being improved for tons of use cases and Zigbee only really has the one use case just now, getting started writing code for x86 with a full OS is much simpler than for a microcontroller etc etc
ultimately the network effect / whatever kick in and the popular stuff usually ends up winning IMHO
Pi is standard, extremely well supported, has GPIO and most people are familiar with running a container and gluing python compared to writing C (I know about micropython, but Joe PythonLearner doesn't).